A small figure was already standing outside the station when the car Sir Eustace drove whirled round the corner of the station yard. He was greeted by the waving of a vigorous hand, as he dashed up, grinding on the brakes in the last moment as was his impetuous custom. Everyone knew him from afar by his driving, and the village children were wont to scatter like rabbits at his approach.
Dinah however stood her ground with a confidence which his wild performance hardly justified, and the moment he alighted sprang to meet him with the eagerness of a child escaped from school.
"Oh, Eustace, it is fun coming here! I was so horribly afraid something would stop me just at the last. But everything has turned out all right, and we are going to have ever such a fine wedding with crowds and crowds of people. Did you know Isabel wrote and said she would give me my wedding dress? Isn't it dear of her? How is she now?"
"Where is your luggage?" said Eustace.
She pointed to a diminutive dress-basket behind her. "That's all there is. I'm not to stay more than a week as the time is getting so short I don't feel as if I shall ever be ready as it is. I've never been so rushed before. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be almost better to put it off a few weeks."
"Jump up!" commanded Eustace, with a curt sign to a porter to pick up his fiancée's humble impediments.
Dinah sprang up beside him and slipped a shy hand onto his knee. "You look more like Apollo than ever," she whispered, awe-struck, "when you frown like that. Is anything the matter?"
His brow cleared magically at her action. "I began to think I should have to come down to Perrythorpe and fetch you," he said, grasping the little nervous fingers. "I thought you meant to give me the slip--if you could."
"Oh no!" said Dinah, shocked at the suggestion. "I wanted to come; only--only--I couldn't be spared sooner. It wasn't my fault," she urged pleadingly. "Truly it wasn't!"
He smiled upon her. "All right,--Daphne. I'll forgive you this time," he said. "But now I've got you, my nymph of the woods, I am not going to part with you again in a hurry. And if you talk of putting off the wedding again, I'll simply run away with you. So now you know what to expect."